Police urge public to 'shop' loyalist feud killers

Police in Belfast tonight urged the loyalist community to “shop” those involved in the bitter internal paramilitary feud which has now claimed its second life.

A senior detective investigating one of two tit-for-tat murders in the past week said there was only so much police could do on their own and needed help from the public to bring the feud between rival factions to an end and round up those responsible for the violence.

Police chiefs fear fresh bloodshed in the bitter power struggle between the Ulster Defence Association elements and Detective Superintendent Roy Suitters predicted the death toll could rise to six unless the feud was halted.

His appeal came after the murder late on Thursday night of UDA member Roy Green, who is believed to have been shot dead by members of the organisation opposed to former terror chief Johnny ’Mad Dog’ Adair.

His killing – three bullets in the back of the head as he left the Kimberley Bar on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast with another man – followed that on Boxing Day of Jonathan Stewart, 22, a close relative of one of Adair’s former associates.

The murders were the latest in a series of reprisal attacks after Adair was expelled from the UDA several months ago following a fall-out with the organisation’s other commanders.

They later called on members to distance themselves from Adair and his closest associate John White, but both factions have continued to carry out attacks on each another.

There have been attempts by community representatives to set up talks between the warring factions, but both sides have said they are not interested in mediation.

DS Suitters, speaking as police returned to the scene of the St Stephen's Day killing in a bid to jog the memories of local people, said they needed more help to tackle the feud.

“The people that are named in connection with these offences are arrested and questioned. We do everything we can but we need information, we need people to help us,” he said.

“We can only carry out preventative work with the co-operation of the community. We need people to give us information that we can act on.”

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble branded the feud “appalling” and called on the police to involve the wider community in tackling it.

“The police are doing considerable work to protect lives, and I would ask them to use all the means at their disposal to end this destructive feud,” he added.

Party colleague Michael McGimpsey, a minister in the suspended power-sharing executive and Assembly member for south Belfast, told the factions to use dialogue not gun fire to resolve their differences.

“Surely it is possible for both sides to find a way of talking their way through this.

“Dialogue is the only way of getting it stopped because each one of these murders begets another murder.”

He was supported by the SDLP Assembly member for the area, Dr Alasdair McDonnell, who said there could be no justification for murder.

“We don’t care what faction the victim comes from, we don’t care what faction those who did this come from,” he said.

“We don’t accept that the victim was entitled to be gunned down like this and we don’t accept that those who did it had any right to do it,” he added.

Roy Green, an ex-prisoner in his late thirties, was a member of the UDA in south Belfast, but according to loyalist sources had recently aligned himself with Johnny Adair’s notorious “C Company” in west Belfast’s Shankill Road.

John White, who has survived at least one bomb attack on his Co Antrim home during the feud, said he believed Green had been murdered for criticising the UDA leadership.

He said: “Mr Green would have been critical of the UDA leadership. He would be very critical of the way Johnny and myself have been treated and he would be also critical of the UDA leadership and the way they are leading the organisation.”

Mr White added: “My understanding is that he was a very forthright and frank person and I think that is why he ended up dead last night.”